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Audi expects to be on the grid for next year's 12 Hours of Sebring, despite the historic race's disappearance from the FIA World Endurance Championship schedule. However, Sebring next year will, as always, serve as the opening round of the American Le Mans Series season.

The North American round of the WEC will take place at the new Circuit of the Americas facility near Austin, Texas, next September instead of at Sebring in March; but the 2013 calendar has been set up to allow WEC teams to take part in the ALMS' Florida fixture. Audi plans to take advantage of that, according to Audi Sport's boss of racing commitments, Dieter Gass.

“We hope to be able to go and we are planning to go at this stage, but the final decision has not been made,” he said. “It is a very good preparation for the Le Mans 24 Hours.”

Audi has traditionally used Sebring as a Le Mans warm-up and continued to compete in the event after the manufacturer withdrew from the ALMS at the end of 2008. It has missed the race only once, in 2010, since the start of its prototype program in 1999, and has notched up 10 Sebring wins.

Gass also said that Audi's participation would be “a kind of a farewell” to an event that will be out of bounds when LMP1 machinery likely disappears from U.S. sports-car racing after the new, combined ALMS and Grand-Am series debuts in 2014.

“It would be a nice thing to do after all the years,” he said.

Sebring, which is part of ALMS founder Don Panoz's organization, is confident that it will continue to attract a number of WEC regulars for next year's event on March 16.

Sebring general manager Tres Stephensen said, “We are very encouraged about 2013. We have already received inquiries from WEC teams who wish to compete in next year's Sebring endurance classic.”

WEC boss Gerard Neveu explained that leaving a window for the WEC teams to take part at Sebring had been one of his prime considerations when scheduling next year's world championship calendar.